This is just the way people are. There's a simple reality that most people find uncomfortable: they are part of a generation that starts out young but will be replaced by younger generations in just a few decades that will do things differently and will largely ignore their opinions.
I'm nearly fifty. Most people in the industry are way younger than me. A few are older. In twenty years, most of my generation will no longer be active in the industry. And most of the industry will consist of people who aren't even part of it right now because they are still toddlers or in school. Reason for this is that our industry is still growing and is dominated demographically by people below 30. The older ones don't disappear, they are simply outnumbered.
A lot of people my age have all sorts of opinions about AI and what it will or won't do. Most of that won't matter because in a few short years, we'll be side lined. I'll just be an old man ranting and nobody will care. Nor should they IMHO. Or alternatively, I delay that a bit by keeping myself young and relevant by learning new things. Including AI.
I have a few interns in my team aged around 20. Smart people, fast learners. And they are treating AI in a very rational way: a tool that's there that they need to be able to use in order to function. Pretty fun to watch how quickly they pick things up. Mental agility of young people is fun to watch. And I like having people like that around.
Anyway, there is no royal we. Whenever I see somebody proclaim something like "we should ...", I mentally translate this "I think we should do X" and then ask myself why anyone should bother to even listen. Sounds a lot weaker like that. Younger generations paying attention to older ones making such proclamations is not how humanity moves forward. It's actually by younger generations mostly ignoring the older ones and doing things differently and then the old generations die off and things have changed.
AI is exactly like every other disruptive tools that have come along. Most of the people ranting against those tools will be gone and forgotten in a few decades. They and their opinions don't matter. Look at new generations and how they use AI effectively. That's the future. And they too will get old.
Fatalism or you misunderstood what I wrote. We are here contemplating possible futures: one is the hypothetical automation of everything which no one has ever experienced and therefore your experience has no adequate analogy. If it does happen then the old in industry won’t be replaced by the young with a different perspective just like always as no one will be working anymore. In this scenario the opinions of the young matter as much as the old because both are equally irrelevant to industry and society at large.
I'm nearly fifty. Most people in the industry are way younger than me. A few are older. In twenty years, most of my generation will no longer be active in the industry. And most of the industry will consist of people who aren't even part of it right now because they are still toddlers or in school. Reason for this is that our industry is still growing and is dominated demographically by people below 30. The older ones don't disappear, they are simply outnumbered.
A lot of people my age have all sorts of opinions about AI and what it will or won't do. Most of that won't matter because in a few short years, we'll be side lined. I'll just be an old man ranting and nobody will care. Nor should they IMHO. Or alternatively, I delay that a bit by keeping myself young and relevant by learning new things. Including AI.
I have a few interns in my team aged around 20. Smart people, fast learners. And they are treating AI in a very rational way: a tool that's there that they need to be able to use in order to function. Pretty fun to watch how quickly they pick things up. Mental agility of young people is fun to watch. And I like having people like that around.
Anyway, there is no royal we. Whenever I see somebody proclaim something like "we should ...", I mentally translate this "I think we should do X" and then ask myself why anyone should bother to even listen. Sounds a lot weaker like that. Younger generations paying attention to older ones making such proclamations is not how humanity moves forward. It's actually by younger generations mostly ignoring the older ones and doing things differently and then the old generations die off and things have changed.
AI is exactly like every other disruptive tools that have come along. Most of the people ranting against those tools will be gone and forgotten in a few decades. They and their opinions don't matter. Look at new generations and how they use AI effectively. That's the future. And they too will get old.